Christie (27 page)

"Sure could stand a real bed to lie on."

"Lula! You're awake!" cried Christie. "How are you feeling?"

"Not as spry and sassy as a young-un in a mud puddle, but not ready for the preacher man, either," answered Lula, grimacing as she tried to smile through her bruised and swollen face. "Where are we now?

"Facing the main drive of Riverlea plantation," said a masculine voice as the door swung open and Jesse stuck his head in. "We'll be at the big house in
about ten minutes. Christie, care to join me on the seat outside and survey some of your new property?" "My—property? Oh, Jesse—" "As a Randall, you share in all of it, sweetheart. But we can talk about that later. Want to join me?" "I'd love to." She smiled. "You'll be all right, Lu?" "Ah'm fine, child. Go take a look at the place. Ah got Jasper here if ah need help," she replied, indicating the sleepy-eyed boy who was just beginning to stir.

Jesse helped her down from the carriage, and as he set her on the ground before him, Christie looked up and exclaimed, "My Lord, you're even taller than Garrett!"

Chuckling, he said, "It's just one of the ways I lost the epithet, 'little brother.' I've got two inches on Garrett. He can still outwrestle me, Indian fashion, though. It seems height has little to do with facility in that. Laughing Bear and my brother proved themselves evenly matched at a celebration in the village last year, and yet the brave is a good four or five inches shorter," he added, helping Christie up to the driver's seat.

Once
seated, Christie looked around her, taking in the view the high seat afforded. Stretching out before them was a long, well-tended drive, lined on either side with tall live oaks that stood like gracious sentinels, stretching their great branches in a partial canopy over the drive and the neat whitewashed fences that paralleled them on either side. To the left and the right of these, she could see long, rolling acres of lush meadowland and green pastures, and in the growing light of the early morning, she made out scattered groups of horses grazing.

As the carriage moved forward, she saw, in the distance to their right, some gently rising hills, terminating in a high ridge that was still partially obscured by a haze that hovered about it. To the left, she noticed a distance copse of trees, their outline softened partially by a low layer of ground fog.

"That fog comes from the river, which we can't see from here, but it lies just behind the trees," said Jesse. "Beyond it, the delta land stretches out, low and flat for miles; perfect for rice growing, although rice isn't our major crop."

"What is?" queried Christie.

"Tobacco, but the land we use for that is miles from here, where the terrain is quite different. Also, much of that land was acquired by Garrett in the years since our parents' deaths. In fact, Riverlea is now thrice the size it was when our father ran it," he said, and Christie noticed how easily he spoke, giving no indication of any heaviness of emotion when he mentioned his parents.

"Jesse . . . the tragedy that caused the loss of your mother and father ... it hasn't—affected you in the same way it has Garrett, has it?"

Jesse was silent for a long moment, looking^ off into the distance, not as if he were seeing what lay there, but more as if he were studying something else in another time, another place.

"No, it hasn't," he said finally, his voice low and softer than usual. "You have to remember, Christie, I was only a child when it happened, and while, at the time, I thought my grief would have no bottom, I found, after the passing of time, and with my brother's arm to lean on, it did pass. But I was able to meet it with a child's heart and mind, with a child's
resilience, if you will. For Garrett, somehow, things got all twisted. Where there should have been grief, there was angry bitterness; where there should have been release, there was a walling up of all emotion, all warmth, leaving behind only the pain . . . and this terrible quest for vengeance. . . . Ah, I wish I knew how to reach through all that granite he's installed in his heart!"

He turned to look at her then. "You see," he said, ever so softly, "I know exactly what you were facing when you decided to leave my brother. It's a very difficult thing to love, in the face of all that granite."

He had stopped the horses as he uttered these last words, and Christie felt the air had become so still, she could almost hear her heart beating. At last, staring at that same point on the horizon he had focused on, she asked, "What does one do, then? Continue to love him at a distance?"

Jesse thought her voice sounded very frail, almost brittle in the silence which surrounded it.

"Something like that, in my case. But for a woman—ah, I don't know that that could ever be enough. I do know this, though. Without ever seeing the two of you together, I suspect you, little sister, have somehow, unwittingly cracked the barrier that lines my brother's heart, and that if anyone's ever going to pierce it or dismantle it entirely, that person is you, Christie Randall," he said, touching her playfully on the tip of her nose. "You!"

Then, as he urged the horses forward again, Christie gave him a slow smile, saying, "If I were of a suspicious nature, Jesse Randall, I'd suspect my refuge and recuperation and a willingness to come to know me better weren't your only reasons for
bringing me to Riverlea. And if those suspicions were to continue, sir, they would warn me that those reasons had something to do with your brother, Garrett!"

But the only answer she received was a lively blue-eyed twinkle and a suspiciously loud "Giddap!"

When they had driven a bit further, they reached a little rise in the drive, and moving just beyond it, she caught her first view of the big house. A large, two-storied structure lay before them, white and brilliant in the sunlight, its tall Grecian columns standing straight and proud in the quiet of the morning. Long expanses of emerald lawn stretched out before it, broken only by the wide circular shape of the drive as it curved in an arc before the main entrance.

At first it appeared no one was about; but then Christie saw a door open to the left of the two large wings which flanked the central structure, and a small, round woman with snow-white hair rushed forward, wiping her hands on her apron as she rancor perhaps, waddled was more like it, thought Christie, for it became clearer, as she neared them that the poor soul's running days were well behind her.

"Mattie, you old sweetheart," called Jesse, "what are you doing about this early?"

"Why, Mr. Jesse," replied the woman, being hugged and lifted into the air by him, "now, you put me down. Don't you know I'm gettin' too old for your gymnastics?"

When he had, she added, "And don't you remember, Saturday is my early bread-bakin' day, so's I can make double, and not have to bake on the Sabbath?"

Then she noticed Christie.

"Lord, you didn't tell me we were havin' guests! And how can you be in your right mind, lettin" a lady sit up there, anyway? Why, she's only a child! And a mighty tired-lookin' one, at that!"

"Mattie, I'd like you to meet Christie. She's Garrett's new wife." He lifted Christie down from the seat.

"Mr. Gar— He really did do it, then? Praise the Lord! Married himself an angel, too, by the sweet
looks of
her.' Welcome to Riverlea, child. I'm Mattie Oliver. Been with the boys since the year they were orphaned . . . but, let's not keep jabberin' about me. You both look like you could use a hot bath and some rest. Where's Mr. Garrett? And where'd this carriage come from? Imagine, a Randall bride ridin' in a hired carriage!"

As Mattie prattled on, Jesse explained as casually as he could, that Garrett wasn't with them, but that his wife had come to Riveriea when she discovered she was expecting their child. At this news, Mattie nearly exploded with joy, coupled with outrage that he should have allowed Christie to ride in the driver's seat in her condition; and when Lula and Jasper were produced from inside the carriage, she threatened to box Jesse's ears for allowing them to stand around "jabberin"' when it was clear the household had to be roused to attend to these poor folks who had obviously suffered some difficulties.

Then, like a shot, she was off, ushering Christie into the house and throwing commands at Jesse that he was to be gentle as he carried Lula to a place of comfort, while to Jasper she promised a piece of sugar cane in exchange for his promise to help her

tend his mamma. And as Christie took all of this in, she began to have the curious feeling that Jesse wasn't the only one who had come home.

The day passed in quiet relaxation for Christie. She was installed in a large, gracious bedchamber which she assumed to be a guest room, but which, she later learned from Mattie, was a replica of the master bedroom that had been shared by Marianne and Jeremy in the first big house. For this house had been built by Garrett as an exact reproduction of the old one. The master suite, reserved for the day that one of them would take a wife, had been unused all these years, but no amount of protest on Christie's part could change Mattie's mind and convince her to give her another room instead.

Once bathed and rested, she visited Lula, who had been given her own room in the comfortable servants' quarters, and appeared to be recovering speedily from her ordeal.

"When you've been on the streets as long as ah have, girl, you don't let something like this scar you. The body heals quick enough, and the mind can be willed to heal too," she said, and Christie once again marveled at the strength contained within her tiny frame and wondered if she could have survived half as well, had their situations been reversed.

In the evening she was told by one
of
the bevy of servants that seemed to be about, that she might dress for dinner if she felt up to it, for Master Jesse would be pleased to have her join him at eight. Then two identical, freckle-faced, red-headed girls of about thirteen or fourteen arrived, informing her they were "Grannie" Oliver's granddaughters, Millie and Katy, temporarily relieved of their duties as upstairs
maids to assist her in dressing until Lula was well enough to resume that function. This they performed with some difficulty, not having been trained as ladies' maids. As they were tackling the awesome task of restoring some order to Christie's heavy mane of long hair, and Christie was just at the point of politely finding some way of telling them she would manage it herself, there came a rapping at the door, followed by the huffy arrival of an irritated Lula, who promptly pronounced herself no pampered pet, but fit as a fiddle and ready to take on the job herself, thank you!

At eight Christie descended the great staircase leading to the main parlor, wearing the deep blue gown she had worn the night she and Garrett had dined at the inn in New York.

"I'll say one thing," said Jesse when he saw her. "I've never questioned my brother's taste in women or in wines, but I would say, when he found you he reached the rarest vineyard and reaped its finest vintage. You're a beautiful woman, Christie Randall."

Christie dimpled, taking his arm. "Is there something in the air here in Carolina that makes its men so lavish with their compliments?"

"Only a fair-haired sprite with turquoise eyes." He grinned, and led her into the dining room.

At dinner they talked of many things, and the time passed easily between them. Jesse quietly noted she seemed to be hungry for details of Garrett's past, and he answered her many questions as carefully as he could.

Then he got her to talk of herself—of Windreach
and her life there, of Thunder, of her relationship with Charles. When they came to this last topic, he noticed she grew quiet and pensive, her eyes large and dark.

"You miss him very much, don't you?" he asked.

"Painfully so," she answered, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

"Then why don't you at least write to him? You needn't tell him where you arc—merely that you are safe. And if you like, I can arrange to set up a place where he may write to you in return without being able to trace where his missive is being forwarded. Carlisle's office in Charleston, for instance. I assure you, your whereabouts would be kept strictly secret until such time as you would want your father to know where you are."

"Oh, Jesse, that's a wonderful idea! I'll do it. Is there someone who can carry it right off?"

"First thing in the morning, if you like." He smiled. "Now, is there anything else I can do to make you comfortable, princess?"

Christie had just begun to sip her second glass of wine and she suddenly went pale.

"Only to excuse me ridiculously early from what has been a lovely dinner," she pleaded, adding, "Whoever decided it should be called, 'the morning
sickness'?"

Quickly, Jesse was at her side, helping her to the stairs. When he had deposited her safely into Lula's care, he closed the door and chuckled to himself. "Judging by the way that babe troubles its mother already, I wouldn't be half-surprised if it turned out to be just like its daddy!"

Chapter Nineteen

The man called "Blakie" satacross from Garrett in the dark corner of the Cheapside Tavern and licked his lips as he stared at the full glass of whiskey in front of him. He was about fifty years of age, but appeared a great deal older owing to long years of physical neglect of his person. Tiny, beady eyes squinted out from between the rolls of fleshy facial skin surrounding them. His nose, large and bulbous to begin with, seemed mounted on his face in an attempt to obscure all other features there. It was bright red in color, from years of consuming gin, and there were fine purple veins over its entire surface. He wore a two- or three-day's growth of beard, and his clothes looked as though they hadn't been off his body since long before his last shave. They covered a frame that was short and squat, and all of his extremities seemed to mimic this shape. His neck was so short as to be no neck at all; his arms as they stretched nervously over the table, were so pudgy as to look dwarfish. The thick, stumpy fingers he used to stroke the table on either side of the whiskey glass went well with the squared-off hands to which they were attached.